Michelle is a seasoned international trade compliance leader with 20 years of practical experience through a combination of in-house, law firm, higher education, and Big 4 consulting roles. She is currently the Head of Global Trade, Chief Global Trade Counsel at Salesforce, responsible for all global trade programs, including export control, sanctions, and customs. She develops and executes global trade compliance strategy aligned with Salesforce’s business objectives and growth plans. She oversees trade compliance with all Salesforce products, services, and technology transfers globally. She leads a team of high-performing and dedicated trade counsel and professionals. 

Prior to Salesforce, Michelle was with SAP America, where she was the Chief Legal Counsel for Export Control / Sanctions, acting as the primary legal counsel for all activities relating to the export of SAP’s software and services for North and South America. Michelle worked closely with all SAP cloud business groups (Concur, Ariba, Success Factors) and other functional teams within SAP to ensure compliance with trade laws and market requirements with customers, partners, authorities, and policy makers. Michelle defined SAP’s export control and trade sanctions operations policies and standards; developed and implemented export control and trade sanctions authorization strategies; and advised the lines of business on export control and trade sanctions best practices while monitoring SAP’s deliveries in the Cloud and on-prem. Michelle also led the export control legal team’s strategic role-based global training program, the first ever implemented at SAP.

Prior to SAP, Michelle was part of the management team of Deloitte’s Global Trade Advisory Practice Group. Michelle led high performing teams to support global trade matters including the design and implementation of export compliance programs; provided guidance and solutions for proactive and remedial measures for global trade compliance; created and led customized export compliance training; and assisted global companies with strategic, operational and compliance matters as related to mergers and acquisitions; integration activities; trade automation; and business model optimization. Michelle was also an Attorney within the International Trade practice group of a large law firm in Washington, DC and has considerable experience working in the Office of General Counsel and Corporate departments of large aerospace and defense companies, such as Raytheon Technologies and The Boeing Company, where she provided strategic regulatory trade control guidance on licensing and global trade compliance. She was also the Empowered Official and subject matter expert at a major research University, where she spent much time developing and implementing an internal export control and trade sanctions compliance program.

Michelle is an Advisory Board Member of Women Influence Power and the Law. She is also a founding member of the Syracuse University College of Law Inclusion Network and the author of Amazon bestseller Kindly, Michelle, which she wrote for law students and future law students. Michelle received her Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University College of Law in 2005, where she was a member of the Moot Court Honor Society and an Editor for both The Labor Lawyer Journal and Journal of International Law and Commerce. Michelle received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Virginia in 2001, where she was a member of the University Judiciary Committee. She is a member of the District of Columbia, Virginia, and New Jersey bars.

Michelle and her husband reside in the Texas Hill Country and have a middle school son and a very active goldendoodle.